“I talked to all of them but crazy Becky. No one has my clothes. What’s new with you?”
“Not much. I ran into Nutsy. He was getting his stuff from Sissy’s house.”
“That’s too bad,” Lula said. “I was hoping he’d stay with Sissy. That would have been a better arrangement. He already had a bedroom in Sissy’s house. He kind of cramps my style when he’s living with us in your apartment.”
My heart stopped dead in my chest for a full thirty seconds. “Are you staying with me? I thought you and Connie solved all your problems.”
“We did,” Lula said. “Figuring out living arrangements until my apartment is fixed up was easy. I told Connie we’re like two peas in a pod in your apartment. There’s no reason to look any further. And by the way, what were you planning for dinner? Nutsy finished off your peanut butter. And I don’t think there’s any more bread or beer. Maybe a glass of wine would be nice for tonight. Personally, I like white because if you spill some it doesn’t leave a stain. We could celebrate being together. Just like sisters. Do you have cable? I have my favorite shows. Most of them we can stream but sometimes there’s something on cable.”
I finished the pasta salad and stood. “Gotta go. Things to do.”
“Me too,” Lula said. “What time is dinner?”
“There’s no dinner,” I said. “I don’t cook.”
“Yeah, but you defrost.”
“I don’t defrost,” I said. “Sometimes I toast. And frequently I dial. That’s as complicated as it gets.”
I have nothing against cooking. I have pots and pans. I watch cooking shows and I buy foodie magazines. I actually like food a lot. It’s just that I can’t get motivated to spend hours in the kitchen when the only other creature eating my food is a hamster. He’s happy with a grape. I suppose I could find joy in fixing dinner for Lula and Nutsy, but if I feed them real meals, they might want to stay longer. I like them, but not in my apartment.
“Okay,” Lula said, “I’ll be in charge of dinner. I’m excellent at dialing. Dinner is at six o’clock.”
Bob and I left the office and got into Ranger’s SUV. I settled myself behind the wheel, took a calming breath, and called Nutsy.
“Hey,” he said.
“Where are you?”
“I’m leaving Sissy’s house. I swapped out my bike for Duncan’s Kia Rio. Sissy’s okay driving my bike. She’s done it before.”
“Not perfect but good enough. Let’s find the homeless guy. Pick a meet spot.”
“The coffee shop on Broad and Twenty-Third Street.”
Nutsy was already there when Bob and I arrived. He was sitting at an outside table, and he was looking nervous. I left Bob with him, went inside to get a coffee, and returned to the table.
“You can relax,” I said to Nutsy. “Plover isn’t sniper material.”
“He might have hired someone,” Nutsy said. “A hit man.”
“Do you have reason to believe this?”
“It’s what happens on television.”
“Tell me about the homeless guy. What does he look like? Have you seen him since his friend was killed?”
“He was a little past middle-aged. Maybe late fifties. Hard to tell with homeless because they have hard lives, and they age. A white guy but weathered and tan. Sort of faded brown hair. Ponytail. Maybe five foot ten. Shorter than me. Medium build. He was usually in sneakers and baggy pants and a T-shirt and sweatshirt. Mostly clean-shaven.”
“That describes half the men in Trenton.”
“He had a spider tattoo on his hand. Both homeless guys had the spider tattoo.”
“That’s helpful.”
“They were always on the corner, outside the jewelry store, but I haven’t seen them since the one guy was shot.”
“Have you talked to anyone else in the area who might know them? Other panhandlers, crazies, drug dealers?”
“A hooker knew them as Marcus and Stump. Stump is the one who was killed. He was taller than Marcus and he had gray hair that looked like steel wool. Frizzy. She said they weren’t customers but she talked to them sometimes, and sometimes they showed up for the evening food truck.”
“Did you talk to the food truck people?”
“Sure, but they didn’t know much. They just hand out sandwiches and soup. It’s not like they’re social workers. They remembered Marcus because of the spider tattoo, but they haven’t seen him lately.”
“Have you been watching the food truck?”
“I was for a while. No Marcus.”
“Have you looked at the group of homeless under the bridge?”
“Yeah, no Marcus,” Nutsy said. “I went to all the shelters and the soup kitchen. No Marcus. It’s like he’s vanished.”
“Are you sure Marcus and Stump were homeless? Some of the professional panhandlers make decent money.”
“I don’t know. I never talked to them when they were on the corner. They looked homeless.”
I capped my coffee and stood. “Let’s drive around and see if you spot him. Sunday isn’t prime time for begging, but we’ll cruise the hotspots.”
* * *
I gave up the hunt at four o’clock. I dropped Nutsy off at the Kia and handed Bob over to him.
“Take Bob for a walk before you take him up to the apartment,” I told Nutsy. “I need to stop at the market.”
A half hour later I rolled the loaded shopping cart to the Explorer. Bread, beer, peanut butter, deli meat, sliced cheese, frozen enchiladas, a couple bags of cookies, milk, OJ, boxes of assorted cereals, several bottles of white wine, bags of chips, salsa, hot dogs, rolls, a couple boxes of Kraft mac and cheese, and a bunch of other stuff. It was more food than I’d bought in the last six months. Was I a good hostess, or what?
I loaded the bags of food in my building’s elevator and called upstairs for help. I knew Lula and Nutsy were there. I’d parked behind their cars.
“I got food coming at six o’clock,” Lula said after we got all the bags into the kitchen. “I went with sushi and pad thai for our first celebration dinner. We can cut up the frozen enchiladas for hors d’oeuvres.”
In clown mode, Nutsy pantomimed eating hors d’oeuvres and drinking wine.
“You’re freaking me out,” Lula said to Nutsy. “Get a real beer for cripes’ sake.”
Nutsy mooned her, and then Lula mooned Nutsy.
I cracked open the wine, poured myself a large glass, and took my wine into my bedroom.
Lula’s shoes were lined up against one wall. Her newly purchased clothes were hanging in my closet and her undies were in a plastic bin on top of my dresser. Two blond wigs on Styrofoam heads were also on the dresser, and one of the pillows on my bed was sporting a neon magenta silk pillowcase. A fluffy white rabbit with floppy ears was propped against the magenta pillow.
I chugged half the wine and called Morelli. “Tell me you’re at the airport and on your way home,” I said. “The trial is over, right? Today was the end of it?”
“Sorry,” he said. “It’s a weekend. Nothing happens on a weekend.”